


A Rose Garden full of Peonies

by freya_ichigosai



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: M/M, More tags to be added, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-04-23 05:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4864811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freya_ichigosai/pseuds/freya_ichigosai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the War ended and the Dark Order disbanded, Yuu Kanda went off on his own to find out if he could still be a normal human being. Now devoid of his curse mark, he has to discover all of the interesting facets of how life can usually change you. He wanders, without any goal, taking on odd jobs in villages, through a big part of Germany, until he comes upon a small house in a forest and ends up staying for more than just some lunch.<br/>Margaret has lived a difficult life, but she is nothing if not stubborn enough to keep her promise to stay the one person in the world to always be willing to hand out second chances to strangers on her doorstep. So, when she discovers a strange young man with incredibly haunted eyes in her forest, she invites him into her home for lunch. If she ends up playing foster mother to a man with too much history for his age, then that's nobody's business but theirs.<br/>Time passes peacefully until a clown starts coming into a town nearby, and even later a magician-kind-of-person with blood red hair walzes in, but nobody says anything when they return more often and leave into the woods.<br/>After all, the witch who sells spells at the markets and fairs has been known to take in strays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The House in the Forest

**Author's Note:**

> This story is quite close to my heart, but I know how I am with this kind of thing. So I decided to start posting it, so that maybe someone will keep me motivated to finish it.  
> Fair warning: I am not a native english speaker, even though I have been known to still be quite good. At some points, this story may be a little lacking in some departments, from vocabulary, grammar to style. If you discover a mistake or have critique, it's much appreciated!

He met her half a year after the war had ended. 

* * *

The order had disbanded and decided not to keep any contact. Everyone just went their own ways, some returning to families or homes, some moving somewhere to make new ones.Most of the remaining Akuma were disposed of after a few months, so now there was only odd sightings here and there. They were weak without the Noah to lead them.

Yuu Kanda was restless. He couldn't find it within him to just settle in some nameless village and get a normal job. He didn't like cities, either, and becoming a hermit wasn't really all that appealing either. So he travelled. He went from village to village, doing odd jobs to get food, without any destination. He guessed he was traveling eastwards, but he wasn't so sure and he didn't actually care. Neither sun nor moon were interesting to him so he didn't look up for long enough to get an idea of direction.

He was in Europe, that much was clear from the people's skin. Germany, maybe, since he had thought to have recognized some German words he had picked up on missions. But then, the European languages are so similar that it could have been something else, too. He didn't speak whatever it was people in the villages he visited spoke, that was all he knew. English was becoming popular as an international business language, though. Someone always could communicate at least a little with him. It wasn‘t enough for long conversations, but he had never been very social anyways.

It got a little boring sometimes and of course there was the occasional racist asshole. So what if he couldn't speak their language, it wasn't like he was staying for long. At those times he wished he had gone to England or China, where he spoke the language enough to insult people back.

He kind of thought he would spend the rest of his life like this, traveling the nature and getting work in small villages. He was surprised at how much he could actually appreciate flowers and nature in general when they weren't a reminder of his death to come. The lotus had disappeared when its last petal had fallen, but to his great surprise he hadn't just died then. His body had become that of a normal human, able to hurt and scar and heal only as slow as was normal. Already his hands were getting rougher from work and life in the wilderness. It was a fascinating development to him.

The landscape around him had become flatter lately, he noticed. Wild fields had become a more often sight than deep woods, now, and it had become colder. Autumn was approaching. After autumn came winter, he realized with a start that made him feel stupid. How could he have forgotten that?

Had he even forgotten? He wasn't so sure. Maybe he had just not thought about it. No matter, he would have to find shelter somewhere in the cold season or he might freeze or something like that. Maybe someone in one of the next villages he encountered would give him a longer job. Sitting here in this field at least wouldn‘t get him far in that department.

He came to a small, light wood after some hours of walking through almost hip-high shrubbery. The sun was burning down, still hot despite summer coming to an end soon. He had become tan in the last months, even gotten some sunburns before he had bought a hat to shield his face. Still, he was hot and thankful for the shadow the old trees threw. The undergrowth wasn't very thick here, so he was going faster than before. There was a better chance of finding something to eat here, too, since it was about lunch time.

Quite suddenly, the trees opened to a small clearing, where a little house stood. It was old, but well maintained, with ivy growing over almost the entirety of one of the four outer brick walls, a sturdy roof and a small chimney. It was surrounded by wild growing plants looking like they were tended to by human hand and a small old well. This place was lived in.

Yuu just stood there contemplating if he should knock and say hello or not for a few moments when the door opened. A woman in a flowery dress looked out at him.

"Good day," she greeted him, smiling at him cautiously. He realized he must look a little weird standing there and staring at her home. Still hadn't answered yet, too. She had addressed him in English, likely seeing that he wasn't German. He could just answer in English, too. Why wasn't he, then?

"Would you like to come in? I just made lunch and there's enough for both of us." She didn't seem to be put off by his silence.

Looking to the ground, he just nodded a little without thinking on it much. He didn't know her, yes, but she didn't look threatening. She was more than a head smaller than him and seemed very soft and weak, actually. Also, he was hungry now. Looking up, he saw that she had already disappeared inside again, but she had left the door wide open, inviting him in.

Hesitantly, he stepped inside. The woman was setting a wooden table for a second person that had before been only set for one. Nobody else seemed to be coming. Wondering if she lived here alone, he took the seat she offered. From a stove, she took a pot and set it down in the middle of the table. She took a ladle from a hook over the stove and dipped it into the steaming pot, stirring it a little. Then she asked for his plate with an opened hand. He gave it to her and she filled it, careful not to spill any. After giving herself some too, she went to a cupboard and took out a fresh bread wrapped in clean cloth. He took the slice of it he was offered and waited for her to sit down. Before eating, she clasped her hands in prayer for a few moments, mumbling a few words in what sounded like German. Then, without much ado she just started eating, only shooting him an encouraging look, so he followed her example.

They ate in silence for a while. Yuu tried to look around the kitchen because he didn‘t want to stare at the woman. She wasn‘t young anymore, but certainly not old either, in her early forties maybe. Her long hair was braided carefully. It was brown, but a few of the upper strands were sun bleached to blonde. The skin around her eyes and mouth had a few soft lines in it, he noted before he forced himself to stop staring again.

Her house was simple, most of the furniture made of wood and the kitchen area crafted from stone. The stove was more or less metal plates with fire underneath. No matter how simple all her utensils were, her cooking was good. The soup was tasty and light enough for the heat outside. The bread was most likely self-made in the oven on the far wall of the kitchen, too. He had already finished his plate when she stood up and looked into the pot.

"Would you like some more?“ she asked, stirring the pot again. He started a little, having gotten so used to the silence.

"Sure," he answered, trying to stifle whatever it was that kept him from talking earlier. He had been out of civilization for too long, he was getting tongue-lame! Since when was he shy?!

She reached for his plate again and he obediently gave it to her. Deciding that silence wouldn‘t do anymore, he tried to try to keep up at least some small talk.

"Do you often let complete strangers into your house?“ He had almost forgotten about how bad he was at small talk. A small smirk played around her mouth.

"I don‘t get strangers often, here, so no. I do let people in that look like they could use some lunch,“ she answered. Oh. Well, what was he supposed to say at that, huh?

"What‘s your name?“ At least a beginning, wasn‘t it? He felt like an idiot.

"Margaret Bosch, what about you?“ She was still smiling, that was a good sign, right? He hesitated. She had asked about his name, should he give it? There was no reason not to, he just felt hesitant to have her call him "Kanda“. That name was like a token from his time with the Order and he still wasn‘t sure if he could make peace with that, no matter how much all the nature had calmed his hurt soul down. Still, he couldn‘t come up with another name and not telling it would be rude.

"Kanda, Yuu Kanda,“ he mumbled. She looked thoughtful for a moment before chuckling at herself a little and shaking her head.

"Sorry, I'm not used to Asian names. Which am I supposed to call you?“ she looked honestly apologetic, not wanting to be offensive.

"Well, what am I supposed to call you? Ms. Bosch or Margaret?“ The conversation was coming easier now that both of them were relaxing a little.

"Oh, Margaret will be fine.“ He sighed, wondering if it was okay to have her calling him by his first name. He wasn‘t used to it from anyone who wasn‘t trying to annoy him, but it seemed better than Kanda. Why was it so important to him anyway? It wasn‘t like he‘d be staying for long, right?

"Then it‘s Yuu, I guess.“


	2. Stories like Snowflakes

"Then it‘s Yuu, I guess.“ He was almost done with his second plate of soup now. She had put the rest of the soup that was still in the pot on her plate and was lifting it off the table again.

From the sink, she asked "Are you travelling somewhere in particular?“

"No... I‘m just travelling. Actually, I might be looking for something...“ Only after he said it, he realized it was true. He had been walking around without any destination, always driven by the need to find something. Or someone? He didn‘t know. Alma was gone, he knew that and had made peace with it some weeks after the Order disbanded, so who or what was it? Margaret hummed, smiling to herself.

"Let me warn you, it‘s going to be winter soon. The temperature around here always drops very fast, it‘s going to be too cold to sleep outside soon, after all it‘s already almost October,“ she said in a motherly tone.

"Oh, is it?“ he hadn‘t counted the days, so he hadn‘t been aware that almost half a year had passed since the war ended. What might the others be getting up to now? He would likely never see them again, but having spent many years with them, he still cared about them somewhat.

Lavi and Lenalee where still together, he believed in that firmly. He knew Lenalee. She wouldn‘t let Lavi be alone, even now that he was the Bookman. The old panda had died in the war, so "Lavi“ didn't really exist anymore. But Lenalee stuck to him after the Order disbanded and she wouldn‘t ever let him get rid of everything he was. Just her presence would force him to keep his heart.

Marie had gone wandering off just the same way as Yuu had, just like Tiedoll and many others. The beansprout had been badly battered after having won the war for them, but Yuu was pretty sure he would be wandering around playing clown again.

He didn‘t know what Komui and the science department were doing now, but it didn‘t matter to him anyway. They could take care of themselves, everyone could. It was just him who couldn‘t let the past go.

"What are you thinking about?“ He hadn‘t realised that he had fallen silent in thought, but he must have stared at his empty plate for quite some time.

"Nothing much. Just... some old friends,“ that was about as dodgy as it got, but he couldn‘t and wouldn‘t explain the whole Dark Order and war thing to a total stranger. Margaret just hummed again. Silence settled again while the woman started washing the dirty dishes and Kanda looked out of a small window, musing over some thoughts.

"Why don‘t you stay here for a little?“ He startled, having been so deep in thought that he had forgotten about her presence.

"What?“ he asked, wondering if he had heard her right.

"The house needs some fixing before the winter that I could use some help with. Stay a little, it doesn‘t have to be over the winter. Just some weeks maybe, and I‘ll feed you in exchange.“ She was smiling at him over her shoulder from where she was standing at cupboard to put the plates away.

It wasn‘t a bad deal, a roof and food for some repairs, he thought. The house was nice, and he thought he might come to like Margaret‘s calm aura. Maybe some company would help him stop thinking about the past so much.

"Sure. I‘ll stay for a while.“

* * *

 He ended up staying over the winter. It was because of the sudden drop in temperature and the rainstorm, he told himself. The house wasn‘t fully repaired yet and he had promised to help with it.

Really, he had made no such promise, but it was a good way to ignore how much he wanted to stay. After only a week the little cozy house already felt like a home to him.

He loved Margaret a little, in a platonic sense. The woman was the closest to a mother he had ever had. She would listen to anything he had to say and always try to help and would sometimes scold him for bad behaviour. After a month he realised how Tiedoll had always focused on keeping him stable and ready to fight. The old man had cared for him, sure, but he hadn‘t really tried to raise him into anything but a weapon. Margaret did.

There wasn‘t really as much to do as he told himself to have a reason to stay, so whenever they weren‘t repairing or doing chores, they would sit at the table and drink coffee. Germany, no such thing as tea but herb teas for illnesses. The beansprout would be scandalised.

Over coffee, they talked about much. She told him about how she never had felt like marrying, so she had, as a young girl, ran away and found this abandoned house. She had renovated it herself slowly over the course of five years, with the help of some people from nearby villages and travellers. It was an amazing feat, he thought, how she had never given up. But now, she said, she was getting old and it was becoming hard to keep everything in good shape.

He was a little reluctant to tell her about his life. It had mostly consisted of his work as an Exorcist so far, so how was he supposed to tell her? "I was a child soldier in a war against super-humans that made monsters out of dead souls“ sounded like a very convincing story. Hah.

He ended up telling her little snippets, just small things about his life at the order and what he remembered before he was reborn because of the Second Exorcist Project. Like the fact that he had once loved someone who had later died. She hugged him for the first time after that, even crying a little for him. Why she was the one crying he didn‘t know, but he was somewhat thankful about it for some reason.

He told her about Marie and Daisya as boys who he grew up with. Lenalee and Lavi he mentioned as friends sometimes, telling stories about how Lavi used to braid his hair when he was asleep and how Lenalee used to kick him to force him to apologize sometimes to make Margaret laugh. Komui was "That crazy scientist that always made weird stuff“ in his stories, and the science department people were mentioned sometimes too.

He never mentioned Allen Walker. For some reason, he thought it would lead to him letting out all of the bad things that had happened since the beansprout came, so he made a wide berth around any themes that had to do with him.

That lasted him for about a month. Then, with the first snow, he broke.

They had just finished reinforcing some thin patches in the roof and were taking a coffee break when Margaret suddenly let out a small shout of surprise and ran to a window. Confused, Yuu followed her. When he saw what had her so excited, he stared. It was just the beginning of November, but small snowflakes were softly falling from the white sky and settling on the trees all around.

With a wide grin Margaret turned to him."Come!“, she said as she brushed past him. Taking her winter mantle from a hanger beside the door, she ran outside.

He followed her a little more slowly. When he got outside in his old battered coat, Margaret was standing a few meters into the wild garden with her hands cupped to catch snowflakes. He slowly walked to her side, where she was intently studying the tiny snow crystals on her pink skin.

"They‘re beautiful," she stated after some seconds of silence. He just hummed and looked up to the sky, having to squint his eyes a little against all the white.

Someone had once compared Allen‘s hair to snow. Miranda or Crowley, probably, maybe Lenalee, he didn‘t remember who it was. His hair had always stained so easily, looking all dirty with just a little dust in it. At the end, it had almost looked as red as Lavi‘s.

"You look sad again.“ Margaret had stopped wondering at the snowflakes and was now looking up at him. She was worrying again, he could see it on her face clearly.

"I... used to know someone with snow white hair.“ Maybe it was time to get it over with, to tell her about everything. It wasn‘t really his problem if he was giving out top secret information about the Vatican or whatever freely.

"Oh? A friend?“ She was smiling knowingly now. The woman was a little too understanding sometimes.

"I‘m not sure. We were arguing all the time.“ Kanda smirked at the memories of the many fights they had. No matter how soft-spoken the beansprout usually was, he was always ready to answer to a sharp comment likewise.

"Mmh. Was he old? With white hair, he must have been.“ She was crouching now, to look at the frozen water on the grass beneath their feet.

"No. He was younger than me. Just 15 when he came...“ He stopped himself there. Was he really ready to talk about that? He tensed unconsciously at the thought of all the horrible things that had happened.

Yuu only realised he had been staring off into nowhere when he felt a hand on his. Margaret was looking at him with a worried gaze again, and it calmed him somewhat.

"There‘s no need to tell me anything," she stated before she pulled herself back up from her crouch on his hand. As he pulled her up he thought that over. He really had no reason to tell her anything but his own need to get it off of his chest.

"I want to tell you," he said quietly, bowing his head and burrowing his free hand into his pocket.

"Then I'm going to listen." She was smiling at him reassuringly, still holding his hand in hers.

He returned the smile a little wryly.

"It's not a very pretty story."

"That's fine."

The snow had stopped falling then, so they went back inside where their now cold coffees were still waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have already gotten some kudos! (much excite, so wow)  
> Thanks! Also, I think I've got some more mistakes in here, I'm especially unsure about punctuation, so please tell me any mistakes you find!


	3. Memories of past Battles

It was another month later, on the 6th of December, a holiday where a person called Nikolaus (totally not Santa Claus, Margaret insisted) put sweets into good children‘s boots over night, as Margaret told him, that he actually started with the story. He had thought about how he would begin a lot and ended up deciding to just start from when he woke up in the Second Exorcist Project and go from there. So, over coffee and some kind of cake with honey on it, he started he started talking, first about Alma and the experiments, then the "hallucinations" and how everything went to hell. When he was done with that he talked about Marie, Tiedoll, the Dark Order, the Akuma, then went over to Lenalee and Komui, Lavi and Bookman, the Science Department, the branches and then, when the sun began to go down and both of them had had more than enough coffee, he decided that that was more than enough for one day.

Margaret cried for him again, and he let her hug him and apologise for what the world had done to him even though she had nothing to do with it.

When they sat at the table after dinner, Margaret asked: "It sounded like you were close to some people at this "Black Order". Why aren't you with them anymore?" That was just like Margaret, ignoring the huge, creepy killer machines in favour of his old acquaintances.

"We'll get to that. Can't give away the ending when you've barely heard one third of the story yet," he answered with a grin. She sighed and levelled him a good natured glare, muttering something about rude youngsters while getting up to wash the dishes.

Kanda went to help and was immediately handed the dishcloth. They worked together in silence until the last spoon was put away, then Margaret left for her room. Yuu had rarely been to it, but he knew that it was a small chamber, barely enough to fit a bed, a desk with a chair, a wardrobe and some shelves inside. There was a window, though, on which she kept fresh flowers when available and little trinkets made of colourful stones that glittered when sunlight hit them and created colourful light spots on the ceiling and walls. When he asked where she had gotten them Margaret had only told him that a man had given them to her, a long long time ago, while looking sadder than he had ever seen her soft but aged features look. Kanda had decided that he didn‘t like that look and never asked again.

Later, after he had gone to sleep on the couch in front of the small fireplace he watched the embers glow out while the cold slowly crept in through small cracks in the old wood of the windows. The only light in the room came from the fireplace and a thin gap between the door of Margaret‘s room and the floor.

That‘s weird, Yuu thought, Margaret is usually already in bed at this time. Maybe what he had told her that day was keeping her up?

He got up, crept up to the door and carefully pressed his ear against it. Well, at least she didn‘t seem to be crying again. He always felt kind of bad when he made Margaret cry for him, after all none of it was her fault. Still, she always got so invested in the stories, now that he had decided to tell her about his life it almost wasn‘t avoidable.

It was strange to think of his life like it was all a huge tragedy. He was alive, that should already prove that wrong, but in the end a lot of it had been sad and pretty empty. For years, he had chased after Alma and afterwards he just found himself something else to work for until the war was over.

Kanda had realised some time ago that he had never expected to survive the war. He had wanted to see it through, but he had always thought he would die a heroic death in the last battle or something.

Still, whenever he thought about the time before the war had ended, he didn‘t see all of the terrible battles, all the loss and the pain. When he thought about his time with the Dark Order, he saw Lavi, braiding his hair and annoying him in every way possible. He saw Lenalee, always trying to keep everyone in check and care for everybody and he remembered Komui inventing strange robots to help that just ended up going rampant. But what he remembered the most was bickering with Allen whenever both of them needed to let off steam and then going back to ignoring each other again. 

Even Alma, someone who had been a memory full of pain for so long was now just a smiling little boy, running around and almost begging Kanda to be his friend, grinning all the time. He still didn‘t remember everything about both of their other lives, but he remembered Alma, as a woman, smiling and laughing with him, and that was the memory he wanted to hold on to.

Yuu was about to turn away from Margaret‘s door when he noticed a faint scratching sound on the other side. It sounded like a quill on paper, like someone was writing. Maybe she was writing a letter? But to whom, he wondered. Margaret didn‘t have any contact to her family and while she was on good terms with some of the people in the nearest town, the only chance to send a letter was when she was visiting there anyways.

Resolving that he really couldn‘t find out this way Kanda finally went back to his couch. The flames in the fireplace had gone out completely now and soon the light that came in from Margaret‘s door was shut off too, making the room go almost completely black around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got some comments! Thanks a bunch. Btw, somebody pointed out that my quotation marks have a habit of being on the bottom of the line in the beginning of the quotes. Sorry about that, I fixed it. That happens because I am typing on a german computer, and in german putting the first pair of quotation marks on the bottom of the line is right. Still, I know it's not in English, so I'll try to stop it from doing that from now on.  
> Also, I've come to the end of what I had pre-typed, so the chapters will likely take some more time from now on. This isn't going to be long, but there're still about 3-4 chapters to go, so stay tuned!


	4. Coffee-scented Morning

In the next morning, Kanda was woken by bright light streaming into the room. He‘d gotten used to waking up like that because it was the way it had been for over two months now, but he still had to scrunch up his face and turn away at first.

"Come on, wake and shine!“ Margaret ordered cheerfully from where she was standing at the window, still with the curtains in hand. When she turned to see him still with his eyes closed, she laughed.

"Up, I said! We‘re going to the market today and I can‘t have my companion look like I tested potions on him all night, can I?“ The small woman was already in full witch attire, because "Going to the Market“ meant that she was going to sell potions, spells and charms in the nearest town. It was how she earned enough money to buy anything she couldn‘t make herself at home.

She had started dragging him with her there, at first because she didn‘t want to leave an almost-stranger alone at her house and then because she had realized how much more she could take to sell if she made him carry stuff for her. He couldn‘t help with the actual selling because his German wasn‘t good enough yet and because he didn‘t have a "Working outfit“ yet, though.

Kanda actually suspected that she was working on that one. All he really needed for work as the "Witch‘s Apprentice“, as Margaret had informed him the townspeople had started calling him, was a black robe with a big hood that could hide his whole face.

He only got up when the smell of fresh coffee got into his nose and then proceeded to drag himself to the table with his hair still open from the night and still in his sleep clothes. This had become normal on the days they had to wake early to go to the town, so Margaret didn‘t bat an eye and instead handed him his cup of coffee. It was still hot, so he only held it in his hands for the time being to warm his hands a little. Without the fireplace burning the rooms got pretty cold, so it was always a little chilly in the mornings.

Margaret had gotten up again to get bread, butter and honey out of a kitchen cupboard and was cutting slices of bread for the two of them. She was frowning at her hands it with a far away look in her eyes, Kanda noticed with his still a little foggy brain. He was going to say something about it, he really was, but then she handed him his plate with a smile and he decided not to and took a careful sip of his coffee instead. She was probably just tired, it was still pretty early in the morning after all.

* * *

 "Fuck!“ Kanda cursed under his breath after stumbling over the 6th root of the walk to the town. He was still a little tired and had almost crushed some of the herbs that he was carrying in a basket. He had no idea what they were for, but Margaret had given him a very threatening look when she had handed them to him after warning him not to be rough with them.

Before he could get back up from the crouch, he was in from trying not to fall over, she pinched his ear and pulled him up on it.

"You don‘t curse in nice company!“ she scolded him when he was upright again, having stopped walking too. In that moment, Kanda was kind of reminded of Lenalee, getting angry at him for similar reasons. He was quick to nod when she finally let his ear go. Pissing off women like them was never a good idea, he had discovered. Margaret could get quite poisonous when somebody did something rude; she had even gotten him to use words like "please“ and "thanks“ more often than he had in the rest of his life.

After another sharp look, Margaret turned back down the slim path they were walking upon and with a "Let‘s go, then!“ started walking again. Kanda fell into step with her again, once again amazed at how her normal walking tempo still seemed to be a stride.

This was something he had discovered was quite usual in this area. Maybe that was because of the many wars this country had fought, everyone seemed so accustomed to marching like soldiers. He had been wondering whether Margaret had ever actually seen a war before, but he hadn‘t wanted to ask. It hadn‘t been long since Germany had beenunited, but he couldn‘t be sure how close to any old borders they actually were.

Maybe, he wondered, he wasn‘t the first wounded soldier that had appeared in front of her house. She had told him that she also had once loved someone, but that it hadn't been meant to be. Maybe his wasn‘t the first war story she heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is even shorter than the last one, which is a terrible habit I always have had with writing, but I promise you guys that there will be nothing shorter than this! I also promise not to make you wait so long anymore. It was autumn break and I just needed to take some time off from everything. When I get used to doing things again writing will come back to me, too.


	5. The Market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allen makes his first appearance!

The Market was always bustling with life. This town was the center of a few smaller villages and many farmers and other trades came to sell their wares. It was a very superstitious area, so nobody ever dared to question Margaret's spell bottles and talismans and herb blends. A lot of the citizens swore on their effectiveness, actually, and he had seen even the rich folks stop to show off pretty rune stones to their just as pompous friends. That they didn't seem to work on him at all was a disappointment to many of the ladies. 

Margaret never sold from a stall but just stood at corners with a basket on her arm. That way she could move away whenever the crowd at one point became uninterested. Everything she couldn't carry around with her was left in the back of the vegetable-lady's stall, who Margaret was friends with. 

Because there was nothing to do for him now that they had arrived, he picked up the shopping list Margaret had written for him got on with it. He didn‘t particularly like buying stuff on the market, but it was good practice for his German and he would only get bored otherwise. The people were kind and patient enough when they recognized him, but it was still somewhat embarrassing when he had to stumble through the simple sentences to ask for wares. The German language was a bitch to learn, with all its rules and phrases and weird exceptions from them. He was slowly getting the hang of it, but it was taking time.

So, when he heard someone talk in English somewhere, he  got confused and jumbled his request for cabbage. Anneliese, the vegetable lady, just chuckled and gave another customer the potatoes he was asking for. She was a farmer's wife, but her husband disliked the markets so he sent her instead, but she didn't mind. Everything for the chance to get some new gossip, Margaret had added later, when they were back home from his first time at the Market. 

The voice that had been talking in an agitated British dialect had gotten farther off, or maybe the person talking had just quieted down, but anyways Yuu couldn't hear it anymore. He stopped himself from searching for the source and resolutely turned back to fumbling out the sentence he had been meaning to say before. This wasn‘t his business and he wouldn't make it his.

* * *

Kanda got back to Margaret on late afternoon. She had already sold out some of the herbs he had been carrying earlier, but the protection talismans didn‘t seem to go out as usual. The man who was talking at her didn't even seem to need to breath. Margaret was making empathetic noise every once in a while, but he could tell that she wasn‘t invested in the conversation. When she spotted him, she waved him over and he bowed down to her height so they could exchange a few words without others hearing.

"Hey, do you think you could pay attention to our stuff for a while, I still have some business around here,“ she asked quietly. Kanda just frowned at her, she never asked him to do this kind of thing. But before he could ask why she hadn‘t just sent him to get whatever she needed, she had already pressed her basket into his hands and slipped away to disappear into the crowd.

The man that Margaret had been humoring looked after her a little stupefied and then turned to him with a confused look. He could just shrug at him, too. 

* * *

 Margaret hadn‘t been gone for long yet when he noticed a commotion a little further down the lane between the stalls. He heard people ooh- and aahing and children cheering, so he supposed it was a group of street performers or something similar. He wanted to go and watch too, standing here was boring. Still, he couldn't leave without risking that Margaret wouldn't be able to find him.

A little later he didn‘t need to move to see the performance anymore, as it had become taller than most of the audience. There was a clown balancing on three balls at once and pulling tricks all the while. Glitter was in the air from when he had thrown it and the hoop he was currently throwing around hit it every once in a while.

Kanda froze. He knew that clown, had seen him perform in a similar manner before. The scar over his eye that blended in with his face paint now was familiar, too. It was Allen.

Without thinking about it for long, he took a step back into the small gap between the hatter‘s and the vegetable stall so he wouldn‘t be seen. He had decided to leave everything that had to do with the Order behind when he started wandering the world. Now wasn‘t the best time to run into old acquaintances and to be honest, he didn‘t feel ready for it. 

Allen wouldn‘t want to see him again either, he thought. The war had affected him way more than Kanda or any of the others, as he had been straight in the middle of it. The Beansprout was younger, too, even though he was probably tougher than that would indicate. "Keep walking“ and all that. Still, he might want to just forget all about it and  Kanda wasn‘t going to stop him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short once again, yes I know, but it's not shorter than the last one (i think).  
> I just had to get it out there now or it would have sat around for another week at least.


	6. Bad Mood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of brooding and inner monologue, which is my reason why this took so long, too. I hope it's not too out of character.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, I am still alive! I'm honestly so sorry, but I had a huge pile of homework over the Christmas holidays and I am so stressed out right now, you wouldn't believe it.  
> Anyway, cookies to everyone who's still following and welcome to all new blood who made it this far, let's get started.

Allen‘s performance had ended not too long ago when Margaret reappeared. She was carrying a new bag that she hadn‘t had before, but she refused to tell him what it was. He didn‘t push it for long, though. For some reason, seeing the Beansprout again had put him in a broody mood, taking away the easiness of the past few months a little. It wasn‘t because he hated the other or something like that. He had never disliked him that much, but seeing him on his own like that made Kanda think. He himself had barely gotten by before he was picked up by Margaret, and the Beansprout was even younger than him. Then again, he was also more used to life on the road without the Order‘s help. Kanda had grown up with the Church, so he hadn‘t ever learnt anything useful. Sure, he knew how to fight, but that didn‘t actually get you far in the normal world. Allen had his tricks, he could get by. Still, Kanda worried. Quite shocking to even himself, he wondered if the younger man wasn‘t as fine as he seemed.

When he looked up from the path they were taking back home, Margaret was looking at him with a mix of confusion and worry on her face. Not for the first time, Yuu wondered why she cared so much. Many people had seen him on his journey after the Order disbanded, had helped him, given him work. Still, he had never expected anyone to just unconditionally take him in. Well, "unconditionally“ might not be quite true, but in the end she still got far less out of this deal than him, he was aware. She couldn‘t use his helping hand with the repairs of the house enough that it would pay for housing and food.

He had the sudden thought that maybe Margaret had been lonely. All alone in that little house in the forest, she didn‘t get a lot of visitors. Other than the market days, she didn‘t have any human contact that he was aware of. She didn‘t own any pets either and the weeds in her garden weren‘t particularly responsive either, even though she did talk to those. Someone to have a conversation with might just be worth the problems Kanda brought with him for her.

Another glance at Margaret told him that she had stopped looking at him and was instead focused on the path before them. Her face was passive as she walked beside him, no emotion showing through. She got like that, sometimes. Usually it was easy for him to read her feelings off of her face, she was so expressive. But sometimes they just seemed to disappear behind a wall thicker than bricks. No feeling, not even sadness, would be there in her eyes and it made him shiver. Margaret didn‘t scare him, of course. He just hated it when she got like that, because it felt like he was loosing her a little. Yuu might not have known her for long yet, but he had still gotten quite attached to the small woman, so much that he sometimes surprised himself.

Kanda opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. What could he say? He didn‘t know how to put people in a good mood, hadn‘t ever bothered with anyone before. With his old friends there were moments when he had put in an effort to get them out of reveries, but that wasn't a good example, he knew that. 

Lavi had been grinning all the time anyway. It made Kanda feel made fun of, which irritated him a lot. 

The new Bookman was an actor, he knew that. Sometimes the smile looked a little too fixed and fake, like Allen's clown smile. Pretending was nothing new to any of them, so Kanda didn't ever comment on it. He actually thought he didn‘t care until he found himself making openings to get teased to distract Lavi and make him grin in a more real way instead. So, making Lavi "happy“  was as simple as playing along with his act.

Lenalee was strong, she didn‘t need someone to pick her up. She would keep smiling and doing her best, even when she was close to breaking. But, whenever she did need someone, she would come meditate with him. They had known each other for so long and he was time and time again surprised she came to him, even after she became close with Allen. He guessed that she didn‘t want the pity, or to be treated like she was fragile, so he just let her be there, maybe lean against him a little sometimes. That was usually enough to get her to smile again the next day.

Then there was the Beansprout. Allen wasn‘t easy to read, because of that stupid fake clown smile he used all the time. Kanda felt that if he argued with him he would get to see his real self, so he did. Of course he also found Allen annoying and aggravating, but he was also somewhat proud that he got to see Allen wearing and emotion as real as anger. He would fight and yell, give back as good as he got and be the brat he hid inside himself. It was more than Yuu thought others saw when the younger boy was hiding behind his walls of good manners and propriety. So they argued and argued, being petty and rude all the way, but in the end, both walked away from it feeling lighter for it. At least that was how Kanda saw it.

Other than those three people he rarely ever made an effort to help people on an emotional level in the years after he became an official Exorcist. They were all special cases, though, brought on by the war and how broken they all were. Those were more coping skills than consolations. So, when Margaret shut down he didn‘t know how to ask, how to help her out of it. All he could do was be there beside her and exude an aura of worry and caring. He just wasn‘t capable of more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come pester me on freyaichigosai.tumblr.com about my writing!
> 
> UPDATE 16th of February: So guess who read some articles about english punctuation around quotations and realized that it's kinda different from the german way of doing things. I went through this whole thing and fixed what I could think of, but there're probably still tons of punctuation mistakes in it. English punctuation just really hurts my eyes sometimes (why would you put the comma INTO the quotation mark, it has NOTHING to do with it this looks so WRONG), you know. Still, I'll try to do better from now on.


End file.
